It’s official: science says more money won’t make you happier

It has been said that money can’t buy happiness. Now, a new report has been released confirming this to be true. The study, conducted by researchers from the London School of Economics surveyed 200,000 people worldwide about the changes in their lives and found that money doesn’t make people happier. Using a scale of 1 to 10, participants were asked to rank their happiness as a result of these changes. And of course, an abundance of money did not change the happiness of any of the participants.

There are actally simple actions you can do to make yourself happy; ranging from going outside to simply liking a picture on Instagram.

While money doesn’t bring happiness, employment did raise a measurement of points. The thing that raised the most points were unsurprisingly, personal relationships. Being in a relationship raised the scale nearly one full point, while not being in a relationship dropped the same amount of points.

Naturally, having a positive relationship will make you happy, it has been shown that physical contact raises endorphins which makes you happier. So spending more time with your friends and significant other would make you happier than sitting at your desk for an extra hour or two.

But happiness comes from more than just relationships. Mental and physical health also played a part of the study. Taking time for yourself to clear your mind, practicing healthy habits like eating well and getting sufficient amounts of rest and exercising are things that we feel we should already know but don’t always put into effect.

The biggest takeaway from this study is that to be truly happy, it’s not about the amount of money you have, but the kind of life you live. Get outside, take a walk, treat yourself to a big bowl of pasta occasionally (or all the time) and make sure you’re connecting with the people you care about as much as you can.